As the pre-order hour neared, I decided I valued one-handed use and pocketability more than the second camera. Besides, I've always enjoyed the limitations of the iPhone's camera because it has forced me to really think outside of the box creatively — and my photos have been better because of them.

But even though I had told myself I could live without the iPhone 7 Plus' 2x optical zoom I couldn't help but feel envious of iPhone 7 Plus's Portrait camera mode.

Portrait mode, the extra shooting mode that blurs out the background to create a shallower depth of field, had me wondering if I had made the right choice.

The iPhone 7 Plus has a second 56mm-equivalent camera.

Image: lili sams/mashable

Mashable Chief Correspondent Lance Ulanoff tried out Portrait mode about a month ago when it was released as a beta in the public beta version of iOS 10. I knew immediately he'd love the 2x optical zoom from the secondary camera since he frequently uses a 2x telephoto Olloclip lens to take many of his Instagrams. The ability to take photos with bokeh (the photographic term for the blurred-out background in a photo) is icing on the cake for his style of photography.

Portrait mode looked cool, but it didn't seem like a must-have. Over the weekend, I got to really shoot with Portrait mode — a lot. Indoors, outdoors, sunset, dusk. You name it, I tested it.

As a feature that'll remain in ongoing beta (kind of like how Siri was for a long while), Portrait mode is far from perfect. Even so, in its current form, it takes some phenomenal photos under the right lighting conditions.

Getting in your face

As its name implies, Portrait mode is, well, made for taking high-quality portraits.

In the camera world, portrait lenses usually fall anywhere between the 70-135mm focal range and come with a larger aperture (smaller f-stop number); a common portrait lens is an 85mm f/1.8. Why this focal range, and why is it best for them to come with large apertures? Because lenses within this focal range will distort faces less and accentuate facial features more. And you want the lens to have a large aperture to let in lots of light and blur out the background to really draw focus to a person's face — their eyes, nose, mouth, skin and any of their natural birth marks.

The iPhone 7 Plus' second 56mm f/2.8 telephoto lens isn't quite a portrait lens since, but it's closer than any other smartphone camera.

With the release of iOS 10.1, Portrait mode lives within the Camera app under "Portrait" between "Photo" and "Square".

The "Depth Effect" text will turn yellow when it's working correctly.

Image: screenshot: raymond wong/mashable

Shooting Portrait mode photos with "Depth Effect" (as Apple calls it) is really easy. Frame your photo so your subject is within eight feet of the back cameras. The closer your subject is, the more blurred-out the background will be. If you do it correctly, you'll see the background defocus in real time and the "Depth Effect" indicator on the bottom of the screen will turn yellow.

Shooting portrait-style images isn't something most people do regularly. It's easier to take portrait photos of people you know, but if you're going out to take portraits of strangers, you may receive some mean looks like I did. So consider this a Portrait mode Pro tip: Strangers do not like it when you try to shove a large smartphone in their face.

Don't let that stop you from using portrait mode, though, because it's great. A person's face says a lot about them. "Life is about people and so the better that your iPhone camera gets at capturing the people around you — those are the experiences we want to share," travel photographer and filmmaker Austin Mann said on a recent Mashable Facebook Live.

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I had my friend Klaudia look over at some art at The Met. (Click to enlarge)

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Depth Effect

With the Depth Effect, your eyes are drawn to her face instead of distracted by the painting in the background. (Click to enlarge)

Image: raymond wong/mashable

The point of shallow depth of field is to direct your eyes to what's in focus, but you don't need a very shallow depth of field to draw focus to a subject. Below is an example of some very light bokeh. I believe I had the camera about three feet away.

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The Depth Effect is more subtle on this image. (Click to enlarge)

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Portrait mode also works on animals. They're a little trickier to photography with the Depth Effect because they move around more. But if you can get within a foot or two, you'll get stronger, "creamier" bokeh.

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The iPhone 7 Plus does a very good job isolating the background when there's really good light, but for some reason the nose got blurred out in the process:

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Statues are the best subjects for portrait photos. They stay perfectly still and never give you dirty looks or complain. By isolating the background in this photo, the background becomes less busy and less distracting:

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When using Portrait mode, it's important to never go overboard. Sometimes you do want some context from the background. For example, in the shot below, the menu is also blurred out. The Depth Effect photo puts the spotlight on the worker in the foreground, but you lose out on the informative Chinese menu in the background.

Don't use Portrait mode just because you can. Use it when it makes sense.

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One more example of how blurring out the background puts attention on the person. Instead of wondering why this guy is sitting on a wet block of cement, you're more inclined to wonder what's on his mind.

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Up close and personal

Aside from faces, Portrait mode is also great for shooting close-ups of things. It's not quite a macro lens, but it gets the job done in a pinch and really makes objects stand out.

Here are my keys on a rock in Central Park. Look at how isolated the background is and how much sharper the Iron Man keychain appears because you're not trying to figure out where to look.

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This little bulldozer toy I found abandoned in Central Park also shows how effective blurring out the background can be. The Depth Effect photo could have easily been a product shot for an eBay or Craigslist.

These shots look great and the bokeh are nice and strong because they were shot within close range and there's lots of natural lighting to make them shine.

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Using Portrait mode to photograph close-ups of flowers is also awesome:

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The colors are exactly the same, but because of the bokeh, the colors almost pop more. It's an optical illusion and an effective one at that.

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Just look at how much less distracting the leaves are without the details of the green shrubs in the background:

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All of the photos you've seen so far look great because they were taken outdoors with lots of golden sunlight.

In low-light scenarios, Portrait mode struggles more. These tickets look good, but enlarge them and you'll see some serious image noise.

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It took me more than a few tries to get a Depth Effect image of these knights at The Met. The dim lighting and reflections on the metal armor made it trickier to shoot.

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Reflections and transparent or translucent surfaces and materials are Portrait mode's Kryptonite. Oftentimes, translucencies confuse the camera and tricks it into thinking it's part of the background. It helps if the background contrasts more, but you can see how parts of the handle on this gun relic are blurred out because it was behind a plexiglass:

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Here's a better look at them side by side:

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Take notice at how the tops of some of these Coke bottles are smeared out:

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The competition

Now that you've seen lots and lots of before-and-after photos taken with Portrait mode and (hopefully) have a better sense of what it's capable of doing right now, you're probably wondering how the competition compares.

It's true: HTC had this whole bokeh camera feature way back with the One M8 and there are various other Android phones that have it, too.

While not a completely fair comparison, I did shoot comparison shots with Google's Pixel XL using its "Lens Blur" mode (also available on the Nexus 5X and 6P). Unlike the iPhone 7 Plus, which uses the secondary telephoto lens to keep track of the subject and the main wide-angle camera to gather depth information, the Pixel XL's Lens Blur mode is all software-based, which means it's not gathering any depth data and merely simulating it; it's more like a tilt-shift effect (like the one in Instagram) where it's applying a layer of blur around an area that's in focus.

Lens Blur is not as intuitive to shoot with compared to the iPhone 7 Plus' Portrait mode. After you take the first photo, the camera then asks you to take a second photo where you slide the phone upwards. The software then composites a photo with blurred effect. It can be very hit or miss. Sometimes the effect can match Portrait mode and sometimes it's just plain bad.

Compared to the Portrait mode in low-light, Lens Blur sort of works, too. But the tilt-shift effect is so strong (it's blurred out in the foreground and background) that the Citibikes here look like they're miniature toys:

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Image: raymond wong/mashable

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In another example, Mashable Social Good editor Matt Petronzio looks like he's stuck in a diorama:

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With Lens Blur

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Granted, you can adjust the intensity of the bokeh with Lens Blur after taking the shot, but the entire feature just doesn't feel as seamless as Portrait mode. When Google makes it a one-button process and the effect is better than the Portrait mode, I'll buy into the software magic. But for now, Portrait mode beats it.

The iPhone 7 Plus' killer feature?

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That's the question I've been trying to grapple with for the last month. Did I make the right decision by going with the non-Plus iPhone 7? I think I did.

Me being a camera nerd and a DSLR and mirrorless camera owner, I don't really need Portrait mode. If I want the shallow depth of field, I've got the gear to get me those shots.

But there's no doubt in my mind a lot of people are going to love Portrait mode. People want "that DSLR" or "that professional" look and, honestly, they're going to be satisfied by what Portrait mode produces.

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Depth Effect also don't hog up twice as much space either. Sure, you're getting two photos — one regular and one Depth Effect photo — but the Depth Effect photos are, on average, 1MB smaller than their regular counterparts.

Portrait mode is still rough around the edges for some scenarios, but for the majority of outdoor and indoor photos where there's excellent light, it's a killer feature. It's great enough that most people will probably never need to buy a regular camera again.

The iPhone 7 Plus's Portrait mode is Apple doing what it does best with the iPhone: Making complex (and oftentimes expensive) photo technologies completely accessible to regular people who don't want to read a textbook to get great photos.

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